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Sony: Wii owners will eventually upgrade to PS3
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 9th June 2009
Andrew House is the new president of SCEE and has some rather high hopes for the PlayStation 3...
Andrew has only stepped into the role of SCEE president in the last few weeks, taking over from David Reeves who recently left the company. Like his predecessor House thinks that the PS3 will stay on the market for a long, long time, reiterating previous Sony claims about the ten-year life cycle planned for the company.
Talking about how the console will remain profitable into those later years House said he believed that it's likely that Nintendo Wii owners who are only just getting into gaming will inevitably migrate to the PlayStation 3 in time.
"If you look back at previous lifecycles, like PS2 versus N64 [sic], we have lots of data that suggests that lots of people bought into N64 as their entry level gaming device, and were happy to upgrade to a more powerful machine later in the life cycle when the price point was right for them," he told Edge Online.
"I think we’re going to see this later on PS3, and the fact that it’s a Blu-ray player as well and that there’s a [greater] wealth of network based experiences than are perhaps available on the device they already have will add to the proposition."
Microsoft meanwhile are increasingly focusing on digital media, rather than high-definition disc formats, while Nintendo seems unconcerned with media content on consoles. Regarding the thorny issue of a price cut though, House was cagey at best.
"I think you have to position price points around business facing issues like profitability, but I put that in the context of a long life cycle," he said.
"The great thing for me is that European consumers have understood the total value proposition that you get with PS3, not focused solely on pricing. We will have to constantly monitor that and make adjustments when all the factors come into play and make the right decisions at the right time."
Do you see Wii gamers moving to the PlayStation 3 in time? Let us know your thoughts on the forums.
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its more like theyd go for a 360 is it not.
the blu ray argument doesnt really work here i dont think as if you bought a wii in the first place your probably not bothered about HD. although the blu ray is the main reason to buy a PS3
The blu ray bonus that you get with PS3 is wearing thin nowadays. When the PS3 was first released, it was an attractive feature, but the attractiveness is no longer there and within a few years will completely disappear. Already, you can buy a PC blu ray drive for a fraction of the cost and hook up to TV. Then there's PC blu ray recorder drives. Standalone bluray players are also dropping in price rapidly. Plus they have better quality components as well as more features than the console.
I hope Sony are not serious about this '10 year life cycle' of the PS3, because that will help to stagnate graphical game improvements in the industry. Already, PC games are being held back due to multiplatform games being based on certain console limitations.
I think you'll find the 360 is actually cheaper than the Wii. Especially if you're going to hook the Wii up for multiplayer.
Look at the quality of graphics on the PS2 at launch. Then look at some of the later titles, like Final Fantasy X or XII. Quite a lot of difference between them, despite the hardware being the same.
When developers get solidly to grips with coding for the PS3 (and the 360, for that matter) then graphics quality will go up. That being said, I don't think the improvements will be as vast as they were on the PS2/XBox era consoles.
...
To be honest, this statement by Sony is rather naive... and quite arrogant. Wii owners might 'upgrade'... but there are two choices. Really, I suspect that Sony mean that younger kids will move away from playing on a Wii and move to something else. While the 360 has some games aimed at kids... perhaps Sony hope that with more titles like Little Big Planet, parents will be more willing to let their children play on a PS3 than a 360.
That, of course, implies that most parents even pay attention to what their kids play or watch. Which, given the number of under-18's playing 18 rated games... can't be very many.
Even so, this just sounds like Sony doing it's usual arrogant posturing. I don't know what the current figure are for units sold when it comes to the PS3/360/Wii, but I'm fairly sure that of the three, Sony are still trailing.
I have been disappointed with the games choice on the Wii but I've been completely reinvigorated when I chipped and soft modded it. I get a chance to try games instead of hoping they are a good buy seen as the Wii doesn't do demo's, that's one thing Sony and Microsoft have going for them, there's always lots of game demos to play :(
If I bought another console it would be a 360 because it has a lot better games than the PS3 and if I wanted a blu-ray player I'd get a Sony BDP-S350 because I've seen it in action and it's one hell of an upscaler aswell as being about £150 on amazon, so no sony consoles for me ^_^
I own a PSP and don't play any PSP games I just use it as an emulation centre :D
That Blu-ray player has come down a lot since I last looked. Wow...
it was n64, ps1, saturn then xbox, ps2 gc
If I suddenly get a massive pay raise this year (unlikely as we've just had a pay cut) then I might buy a PS3, but I'd rather spend the cash upgrading my computer...
But a ten year life cycle? I understand that they want to maximize the return on their investment but ten years is an absolutely long time in terms of technology. Yes the graphics will get better with better programming but there is still that cap on the hardware.
Unless, a new sku is in order :D
you're right about that: you get one wimote/nu chuck with the Wii then you get to buy 3 more at $50 per set, that's $150 in controllers so the true cost of a Wii with 4 person playability is $400 and after that you might as well buy a Wii fit is another $80
We can dream